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Celine curses as the Conduit slips through their fingers and deeper into the Void. It's always too little, too late. Poor thing. They got the raw end of the deal, but she and Damien needed somewhere to go. She knows enough about what's going to happen next to know that they're important to shutting all of this down, not only Project Lunky but the multiversal instability, the collapse of the storyboard— all of it. But being psychic does not mean the inability to be caught off guard.
All of the lights in the Void wink out, save for one, flickering in the distance, and Celine chokes out a gasp as the hair on the back of their neck begins to rise. She knows that presence, cold and suffocating. The light is getting closer, along with the Entity. She can hardly see it save for a shadow.
They have power, in this form, more than they did in life, but Celine is not sure if they has enough to put a dent in the thing that killed her and her brother. Then, the light stops, a few yards away, and her relief that its power is somehow stifled is overshadowed by the fact that it is wearing her face. Celine's body is dressed in a lab coat, with a name tag reading Dr. Cline. Her hair is held back by a ribbon, just as Mark liked it. Her eyes are dull. They don't reflect the light anymore.
How could he be so selfish, so arrogant? Mark had to take everything from her, even her own corpse. Their fists clench at their sides, and Celine shoves down the urge to scream at the unfairness of it all. "You really can't leave us alone, can you? What else is left for you to pillage?"
"There's plenty," Cline says quietly, watchful and pleased and infuriatingly calm.
By the time Celine realizes her mistake, it's too late. Of course it wasn't alone. Mark would never miss a chance to humiliate her. They blip out of the Void, into somewhere they can curl up and hide, but Mark has already made his way in.
Celine forces her hands to stop shaking and turns her attention inward, to the cabin and the lonely forest. To Damien. Already, she can feel Mark slithering his way into their head. The ice begins to creak. Inside the dream, Celine slings a rifle across her back and tells Damien to get some rest while she's gone.
She's got some hunting to do.